


i love you forever. and i am coming back.

by brionytallis



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Inspired by Interstellar (2014), Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Peter Parker isn't Spider-Man, Post-Iron Man 3, Single Dad Tony Stark, happy hogan is a glorified babysitter, he is but he also isn't. it's complicated., i'm throwing out the endgame time travel rules because they suck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:27:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23687638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brionytallis/pseuds/brionytallis
Summary: After ridding himself of his suits on Christmas in 2012, Tony Stark's dreams are still plagued with visions of the stars. His place among them may end up being inevitable.His twelve-year-old son Peter swears he has a ghost. It protects him, guides him, and leads him and his father to an opportunity to save billions of lives. The only problem lies in Tony's choice between Peter and the universe.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 63





	i love you forever. and i am coming back.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a remixed Interstellar au, inspired mostly by the plot mechanics of Infinity War. You may want to have watched the movie before reading this au, because some of the concepts are hard to translate into a written medium, but I tried my best to do what I could.
> 
> Also an important note! Stephen Strange becomes Sorcerer Supreme in 2012 in this universe instead of 2016. Another note- I'm not going by the time travel rules of Endgame because they were bullshit, so I'm honing closer to the rules in Doctor Strange, but on a way bigger scale than we see in that movie. Hopefully this translates into a discernable plot :)

2013.

Peter's ghost has been around for as long as the boy can remember. 

It was there when he was nine. The day he nearly was killed by the Hammer drones; an invisible force pushing his tiny body to the ground, narrowly avoiding the blast just before Happy had found him and taken him to safety. 

It was there when he was eleven. When New York was attacked from the sky; his ghost had been whatever had miraculously knocked a grenade off the bridge Peter was trapped on. 

It was here now at twelve years old, getting him in trouble for shattering the beakers in his father’s lab in the middle of the night. Peter didn’t always like his ghost very much. In times like this, it was more of an annoyance than a help. When he hears the glass crashing to the concrete, he just sighs and grabs the dustpan from the closet, hoping it hadn’t alerted his father to the commotion. It really wasn’t anything personal- it’s just that his Dad was a worrywart to beat the band. 

The first time he told his father about the “ghost” he was hardly big enough to have lost his first tooth, and since then, telling his dad about the ghost has always lead to a lesson on entropy, or physics, or some other concept his dad thought could explain a young boys anxieties away. Tony was trying to make Peter understand that nothing was going to hurt him as long as he was around, even if Peter was too young to understand some of the things his dad told him. If anything could be said about Tony Stark’s parenting, it would be that he cared too much. 

The ghost was a peculiar character. It tended to catch Peter’s attention at strange times, and it also seemed to have no regard for order. The broken beakers were a repeated offense. 

While Peter was wrapped up in his task of cleaning, Tony was entering the lab, having been alerted to the noise by JARVIS. He’s wearing the red silk bathrobe, which Peter knows means Tony was trying to convince his son that he was asleep, but it’s really been a Bad Night. Tony doesn’t sleep on the Bad Nights. Peter is half convinced that he has his own ghost too. 

“Hey bug. What are you doing down here? Something wrong?” Tony spoke with a gravelly voice that hadn’t been used all night long. 

Peter shakes his head. “I was getting my jacket. I left it here last night, and when I came to get it, the tray holding the glass tipped over. It’s just the ghost again.”

Tony looks very amused as he bends down to help Peter sweep the final shards into the pan. “The ghost, huh? Well, I may have to start locking up my glassware, cause this ghost is about to bleed me dry of Pyrex.”

Peter makes a stubborn face, scrunching up his nose and pursing his lips. “You still don’t think it’s real? Uncle Rhodey believes in ghosts.”

Tony laughs. “Uncle Rhodey is allowed to believe in ghosts. He doesn’t have a mean old dad who makes him use the scientific method to prove it.”

“The scientific method can only be applied on matter existing in a physical state. Nothing outside of the natural realm can be disproven to exist.” Peter rattles off his answer like he memorized it from a textbook.

Tony almost wants to be annoyed that his son is already smarter than he’ll ever be. But instead, he’s so overwhelmingly proud. “You’ve done some research then, huh?”

Peter takes the dustpan to the trash and disposes of the broken pieces. “Yeah, cause I know it’s real.”

“I think the glass fell off the table. I think you narrowly avoided death a few times. I don’t think any of it is because of a ghost, it’s because the universe knows your dad would go insane if anything happened to you.”

“I thought you said the universe hated you personally.” 

“I did. But it gave me you, so it can’t be all that bad.” 

Peter tries not to smile because that would mean he lost the argument. He watches as Tony picks up the final shards, and carries the dustpan to the trash. 

“Did you dream about New York again?” Peter asks, fidgeting on the uncomfortable concrete floor.

Tony looks over at Peter. They don’t talk about New York unless it comes with this question. Peter usually knows not to ask when it’s late at night.

“Go back to sleep, Pete.”

* * *

If Tony was being completely honest with himself, blowing up the suits last Christmas had been more of a symbolic gesture than a practical one. Because here he was again, starting from scratch on Mark-whatever-the-hell. Sure, this one was a prototype for Peter on his future eighteenth birthday, but it was a suit nonetheless. 

Tony thinks it may be a bad sign that he’s already building this suit for his son years before he’s able to use it. He can’t decide between the root cause of paranoia or rational, healthy fear. 

The dreams he was having weren’t helping either. In fact, that was probably the reason he was so terrified in the first place.

It was the same dream Tony had been having for a few weeks. There were six stones, each glowing with different colors, a golden gauntlet they were inlaid in, and the Titan who wielded them.

Tony had only learned what a Titan was after seeing a hulking purple man in his dreams last month- some creative Googling had helped out. He was still new to the idea of existing in a celestial universe where humans were not entirely alone. He wouldn’t call it a comfort.

That was probably why he was working on the new suit again, his mind drifting back to Peter as he fiddled with the rotator cuff on the suits left shoulder. It’s hard to predict grown up Peter’s future measurements, but Tony hopes the suit will work for now, and he can fine tune it later if needed. For now, the suit goes away in a locked pod inside the lab so Peter can’t weasel his way into vigilantism before he hits adulthood.

Tony worries about the boy when he talks about his “ghost”. Peter is too old at twelve to believe in ghosts, and for as smart as he is, Tony wonders why he hasn’t picked up on things like chaos theory yet. 

He hopes it will come with age. 

* * *

“Pete, dinner’s on.” Tony calls for his son through the halls of the penthouse. The sound echoes off the walls, with no response from Peter. Tony puts down the pasta tongs and looks over his shoulder. 

“Peter?” he tries again.

He exhales heavily. He’s too old for this. Fortunately though, he’s also too patient to yell. 

Tony slings the dish towel off his shoulder, depositing it on the dining table as he passes on his way to Peter’s room. A he gets closer to the door, Tony can hear a pencil tapping against paper- and old habit Peter picked up when he was thinking too hard. 

When Tony rounds the corner and looks into Peter’s room, it’s the messiest it’s ever been. The bookshelf had been emptied of its contents, and there are books strewn all over the floor in what seems to be some sort of haphazard pattern.

“Honey, what are you doing?” Tony asks.

“My books fell off the shelf and I found them all lying on the floor like this. I think it’s morse code.” Peter continues tapping his pencil, scratching some notations onto the legal pad he’s working with.

“Uh,” Tony racks his brain to consider whether he should be calling a child psychologist at this point, “that doesn’t answer my question, honey.”

“I don’t think it matters which books.”

Yeah, Tony may have to ask someone in his parenting support group about this. “Okayyyyy….?”

“Look, I’ve been working on the pattern,” Peter says. He shows Tony the paper, filled with different combinations of dots and dashes. “I think it’s trying to talk to me.”

“Bug,” Tony takes a moment to regain his patience. “There’s nobody trying to talk to you through your bookshelf, okay? Now come on, dinner’s ready.”

Peter looks displeased, but puts his pencil down. “Is it spaghetti? I could smell the sauce.”

“Hm, no.” Tony takes the legal pad out of his son’s hand, replacing it with his own and leading him out to the kitchen. “I made us worms on toast.”

“Ew, dad.” Peter laughs.

* * *

The Titan appears in his dreams again. This time, the stones in his gauntlet are glowing. They’re on an unfamiliar red planet littered with carnage, like it had been bombed out. 

Tony feels pain coursing through his body unlike anything he’s ever felt before. When he looks up to the sky above him, tears spilling from his eyes, all he can see is the black of space, and the light of the stars peeking through the darkness.

He’s screaming, and he knows it’s a dream, but that doesn’t scare him any less. Then he hears Peter’s voice.

“Dad!”

That pulls him out of sleep. His eyes snap open to see Peter, still in his pajamas, gripping the paper he had been working on earlier. He takes a moment to collect himself, grounding himself in the environment of his bedroom, and apprehending the sense of safety. Not another moment goes by before Peter shoves his notepaper in front of him. 

Tony wants to yank his hair out at his son’s insistence on this, and at this time of night nonetheless. But he manages to keep his voice level when he demands; “Peter, what did I say about-”

“I figured out the code.” 

Peter has never been an attention-seeking sort of kid. He’s not one to make things up for a joke either. For the first time, Tony is afraid that this ghost may be real. 

“Look, I’m pretty sure it’s an address. 177A Bleecker Street.”

Tony looks at the array of dots and dashes scrawled onto the paper, trying to understand his son’s translation with his freshly awoken brain. 

“Bleeker Street? Like, uh…”

“Greenwich Village? Yeah. It’s less than 15 minutes from here, I looked it up.”

Tony studies the paper again, not really sure what he’s looking for. Some proof, maybe, that he can bring to Peter’s attention that might dissuade him from this, because it doesn’t feel right. There’s something about this that makes Tony sense danger in his soul. 

“Can we do this in the morning, sweetheart?”

Peter huffs, tired of being pushed aside. “Fine, but we go first thing after school.”

Tony is both too tired and too much of a pushover to say no. So he nods, and watches Peter scamper out of the room as he lies back down on the pillows.

* * *

Happy Hogan is just as displeased as Tony is to be driving Peter down Bleeker Street at 3 in the afternoon- both rationing their patience in an effort not to upset the boy.

Peter is almost bouncing in his seat, peeking out his window to see the building he’s looking for. “177, Happy, remember?” 

“Yeah kid, we’re almost there.” Happy answers halfheartedly. “Keep that seatbelt on your body, I don’t want to get pulled over for endangering a minor.”

Peter ignores Happy and keeps bouncing. “Dad, do you think this is where the ghost lives?”

“Maybe.” Tony leans his head back, resting on the back of the seat. God, he hopes this phase is over soon.

His son huffs, unhappy that he’s being brushed aside. Then, he suddenly perks up and shouts in excitement. “Happy! Stop, that’s it! 177A!”

Tony looks up to find Peter looking out the window at a building that very much so did _not_ fit in with the rest of the buildings around it. It looked like some poor architect had been contracted to design a Victorian greenhouse that only had one massive window at the front to let the light in. There was really no other point of reference Tony had for the strange design he was looking at. 

Peter unbuckles himself before the car can stop, and is out of the car without waiting for Tony.

“Young man, what did I say about street rules? You stay within hand-holding distance of me.” Tony unbuckles himself and forces himself out of the car, then stops before he closes the door and looks at his driver. “Happy, drive around the block once or twice. We should be done soon.”

Peter grabs his father’s hand and drags him over to the door of 177A. Tony stops him short just before he can push open the door with all his twelve-year-old might. 

“Woah, buddy, have you ever heard of knocking? We don’t even know what kind of a place this is yet.” Tony looks around for a doorbell, or any sign of what kind of a building they’re about to enter. This could be a drug den for all he knows. 

“Ugh, fine.” Peter relents and knocks on the door. Surprisingly enough, it pops open without much effort. 

Tony takes the first step inside- the marble floor and hardwood walls give off the impression that it’s probably not a drug den. So that’s good news. “Alright, nothing to see, just like I said. We can go home now.” he says, pulling at the back of Peter’s hoodie to take him back outside. 

“Wait, Dad, there’s someone-” Peter wiggles out of his grasp to look deeper inside the building. 

“Who are you and how did you find us?” A voice called out from the darkness above the grand staircase that Tony hadn’t noticed the first time he looked. He could almost have sworn the room had changed after he looked away.

“Uh, hey.” Tony says as he backs out towards the door with Peter. “Sorry, we don’t want any trouble, my son was just-”

An energy suddenly surrounds Tony, then he passes out and falls to the ground. 

The last thing he hears before completely blacking out is his son screaming, and someone telling him not to move.

* * *

When Tony comes around, he finds himself alone in a large room surrounded by bookshelves. He almost thinks it might be a library, but he doesn’t get to process that before he sees an orange glow appear in front of him. The light creates a circle, covered in intricate designs and shapes. The circle grows, beginning small, then enlarging to nearly touch the ceiling. Then, to Tony’s surprise, a man (wearing what Tony assumes is an expensive bathrobe) steps through the circle and into the room. 

“I- what is that?” Tony asks the man. He’s both confused and captivated by what he just saw, and he nearly forgets how he got here in the first place.

“I’m not at liberty to say,” the man answers. “How did you find this place?”

“Where is my son?” Tony demands.

“You were not supposed to be able to open that door. So how did you get in here?” 

“Bring me my son and I’ll think about answering that.”

The man’s face flashes briefly with annoyance. “Mr. Stark, I don’t-”

“ **Where is my son**?” Tony shouts; his panic, fear, and lack of patience all combining at once to coalesce in biting anger. For a moment, he wonders how the man knows his name. Then he remembers that he’s one of the most famous men on the planet- and evidently one of the stupidest for wondering in the first place.

The man doesn’t answer.

“Look, I’m not talking until you bring my kid in. Like it or leave it.” Tony sits with his arms crossed, brow firmly knit.

The man closes his eyes, his face reading the same expression Tony has when Peter won’t listen to him. “Stark, would you please just answer the question.”

“Wong, come on, he’s clearly not going to answer you.” A man suddenly appears in Tony’s left field of vision. 

This man actually looks like he’s in charge. He’s wearing the same bathrobe as Wong, but in blue instead of maroon, and there’s a red cape resting on his shoulders with a collar so high Tony wonders how it’s upright.

“Who are you, exactly?” Tony asks.

“I’m Doctor Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts. And you’re not supposed to be here,” the man answers. His calm response and demeanor make Tony even angrier.

“Alright look, doc, if my son isn’t in here in the next five minutes, I’m busting out a suit, which you clearly know that I have-” 

“You mean one of the suits you just blew up a few months ago? I keep up with the news.”

Shit. Okay, plan B. 

“I’ll be honest, I have absolutely no idea how I got here,” Tony is more exhausted and scared than angry now. “But I’m terrified for my son right now, so if you just bring him to me, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” 

Strange considers Tony. He clearly doesn’t see the other man as much of a threat like Wong had. Tony notices that the doctor’s face has softened in what he thinks (hopes, really) is mercy.

Strange turns to his companion. “Wong, go get the boy and bring him in.” Tony tries not to let the relief show on his face as Wong opens the orange circle again and steps through in the same way he entered.

“Your son is fine,” Strange says to him. “He’s smart. I can see where he gets his stubbornness now: he refused to talk, too.” 

Tony feels a surge of pride, then the anger from earlier resurfaces. “Why won’t you just let us go? We haven’t done anything.”

The sorcerer shoots him an irritated look. “Stark, the fact that you were even able to get in here is the problem. No one is supposed to be able to enter the Sanctum except those whom the Stone has granted access to.”

“The stone? What stone?” 

Tony is about to inquire further when the portal reopens, and Wong steps through with Peter beside him. 

“Dad!” Peter bolts over to his father and throws himself into his arms. He’s a little too big to be doing that now, but Tony doesn’t mind one bit.

Wong goes to stand next to Strange, and whispers something to him that Tony can’t make out. 

“So. Now that your son is with you, would you mind telling us how you got here?” Strange asks.

“My ghost told me.” Peter blurts out, before his father can even open his mouth.

“He’s been having these incidents that he thinks are caused by a ghost.” Tony tries to explain. “It’s nothing unusual, he’s just young.”

“When you say a ghost brought you here, what exactly do you mean?” Strange asks. 

Tony thinks about a way to explain that doesn’t make the sorcerers question his son’s sanity. Then he remembers that he’s talking to people who can open magic portals, and he reconsiders the idea of normalcy. “His bookshelf fell, and threw off the books in a certain pattern, and he translated it into morse code.” 

“That’s exactly what happened?” 

“Yes.”

Wong looks at Strange, as if to gauge his companions opinion on the validity of the answer. 

“Stark,” Strange remarks, “You are currently inside of one of the most secretive institutions on the planet. You’re not meant to stumble upon it, and you’re certainly not meant to be allowed inside unless you’re needed by the Stone.”

“You still haven’t explained what that stone is. Or what exactly ‘here’ is.”

Strange hums in agreement. “This is the Sanctum Sanctorum. It’s the headquarters for all Masters of the Mystic Arts to convene and train. We practice magic, like the portals you saw earlier. We don’t like to consider ourselves heroes, necessarily, but we uphold an important function. Our most significant responsibility is to guard the Time Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones.”

“Infinity Stones?” That catches Tony’s attention, recalling his dreams. “They wouldn’t happen to be stored in a golden gauntlet, would they?”

Strange is visibly surprised. “Not stored- wielded. The Infinity Gauntlet is the only known tool in the universe that can gather the stones and use their power together. How do you know about it?”

“How do _you_ know about it?” Tony shoots back.

“Stark, please don’t be a child about this.” Strange pinches the bridge of his nose. “It's not overselling to say that the fate of the universe could be at stake here.”

Wong pipes up- “This has been our Sanctum’s occupation for years. We have researched the stones for as long as we have been in the possession of the Time Stone. They are mystifying, and we still don’t know much about them. All we know right now for sure is that these Infinity Stones each control an essential aspect of existence: Space, Reality, Power, Soul, Mind, and Time.”

As Wong recites this, Strange’s hands form in front of his chest, opening up a large necklace that Tony hadn’t paid much attention to. Inside, there was a green gem that glowed in a way that told Tony it was not a thing of this realm. 

This was what Tony had hoped wouldn’t happen. He brought Peter to this place because he was hoping that the boy would see that it was nothing, and that his “ghost” wasn't real, so he could move on with his life and stop fixating on it. But on the off chance that it was real- Tony had hoped that it wouldn’t be a concern. He’d never been a very lucky person.

“So what does this have to do with us?” Tony demands. 

Strange is quiet. He looks like he’s weighing the amount of truth he should be letting Tony in on. “Well Stark, you may have wanted to put it all behind you, but you are a hero. Your suits gave you powers that make you stronger than almost any living creature. Maybe that’s why the Stones wanted you.”

“But what am I here to do?”

“That’s the complicated part.” Strange says. “But you need to swear that this will remain confidential. And we need to talk without the kid.”

* * *

Wong takes Peter out to the rooftop gardens while Strange selects a book from the numerous shelves in the library. He lays it out on the table between Tony and himself, and flips to a section featuring an illustration of the Stones and the Gauntlet. 

“Holy shit. That’s exactly how it looked in my dream.” Tony says without thinking.

“You dreamt about this?” Strange inquires.

“Not exactly. I had a dream about a Titan wielding this,” he points to the gauntlet, “and everything looked like hell.”

Strange is taken aback. “Could you be more specific about the dream?”

“That’s really all I remember. Some big purple asshole on a red planet that looked like the apocalypse had hit.”

The sorcerer exhales deeply. “I was afraid of this. Now you likely can’t refuse the mission.”

“Wait, ‘the mission’?”

“That Titan you saw in your dream is Thanos. He’s what we’ve been protecting the Time stone from.”

“How can you be so sure of all this stuff, doc?”

Strange pauses. “Watch.”

He opens the necklace again, as he had done earlier, and green tendrils shoot out from the stone and encircle his arms. His eyes close, and his head jerks quickly around, like time has sped up. He appears to be looking for something. Then, the necklace stops glowing, and his eyes open again. 

“I’ve just gone ahead to every possible future of this day. Avoid 5th on your way home, by the way, there’ll be a pileup around four thirty.”

Tony can do nothing but stare at him in confusion. “What does that mean?”

“When I use my powers in combination with this stone, I can see every possible future in any given timeline.” Strange answers. “It’s common for many to have the same outcome. I do this so I can find the one where we make it out alive after Thanos comes in 2018.” 

“He’s coming. There’s no future where he can’t?”

“No. His arrival is inevitable. But his success isn’t.”

Tony gets a terrible feeling in his gut when Strange says that. “His success?”

Stranges face sobers immediately. “He plans to wipe out half the population of the universe using the Stones. Once he gets all six, and he _will_ get them, he has the power to snap his fingers and decimate half the universe to achieve what he considers to be balance.”

“But you said there was a way he doesn’t win, right?”

“Yes. There is a way. But there’s only one out of fourteen million, six hundred and five.”

Tony wrestles with this revelation for a moment. He never would have thought this was where Peter’s ghost would take them. And the way Strange is talking about Thanos, the outlook is much more grim than he had ever thought from what his dreams had showed him. 

“So what do we do, doc?” Tony asks.

Strange sighs. “That’s the difficult aspect. The power I have is very useful, but it operates with certain rules. Every time I look into the various alternate futures of a given time, like the battle with Thanos, the futures will change slightly. So once I see a future, I cannot foresee it again unless it passes temporally in this reality. If I try to look for the same version of the future again, it will alter slightly, but enough that the outcome could change entirely. In a situation as fragile as this, with only one out of fourteen million, I cannot risk looking for that future again unless I permanently travel through temporal space directly to that future. That would be the only way to ensure that we achieve that version of the future in our reality.”

Tony considers this. It’s a lot to take in. “I don’t understand. Why don’t we just wait for the future to come to us? Five years isn’t all that far away.” 

“Two reasons. Firstly, I’m not very comfortable with leaving the fate of the universe up to chance with the odds as slim as they are. Secondly…” Strange stops and looks Tony dead in the eye, unwavering. “The only version where we win is the one where we travel forwards. There is no other option.”

“I’m sorry, ‘we’? When did I become an essential member of the team?”

“When the Stone deemed you necessary. That isn’t meant to be taken lightly.”

“Strange, if you saw me in the future, why didn’t you know what I was doing here when I came to your door?” 

“I did know. I was assuming that I would have come to you instead of the other way around. The Stone bringing you here was not foreseen. I only knew that you were essential to the mission.”

“How do we know we’re still in the right future, then?” 

“Because you weren’t there in the realities where we failed. You gave up being Iron Man. You’re the missing part of the equation necessary to beat Thanos.”

At this point, Tony has no doubt in his mind that he’ll be five years in the future by tomorrow. Then he realizes something. “I can come back, right?”

For the first time during their conversation, Strange’s expression softens and he looks pityingly at Tony. “Traveling back would reset the future. You would have to skip five years permanently.” 

“Strange, with Peter, I can’t…..” He can’t bring himself to finish the sentence. He puts his head in his hands, knowing he can’t even think about saying no. He can’t begin to comprehend how missing five years of Peter’s life is going to feel. For now, he’s just trying to figure out how to tell him he won’t be home for a few years. 

* * *

The ride back home is silent after Tony tells Peter where he’s going the next morning. Peter sits as far away from Tony as he can in the back seat of the Audi, staring intently out the window.

“Pete.” Tony says quietly. The boy ignores him.

“Bug,” Tony tries, “will you please look at me?”

Still nothing.

“Sweetheart, you know I wouldn’t leave if I didn’t have to, right? This is really important. If I don’t do this, a lot of bad things are gonna happen.”

Peter just curls in on himself even tighter.

“Please don’t be upset with me, Pete. You have no idea how bad I want to stay.”

Tony can hear Peter’s breathing hitch, and he knows he’s about to cry. So he leans over to him, and kisses the back of his head. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

* * *

It’s no better the next morning. Peter stayed locked in his room through the night, from the moment he had come home. He hadn’t even come out for dinner. 

Tony writes up a guide for Happy to take care of Peter for the next few years; everything from his favourite foods, to what he needs if he has a bad dream, to the pictures and videos Happy needs to take so Tony can know what his son looked like while he was away. He still hadn’t told Peter how long he would be gone.

After realizing he was losing precious seconds with Peter, Tony forced himself to gather his courage and face his son. It’s that courage that keeps him from turning away too soon as he walks down the hall to Peter’s room.

He tries the door, is surprised to find it unlocked, and opens it. Tony finds his son lying on the bed, back to the door, clutching the stuffed bear he had since infancy. Tony knows Peter can hear his footsteps, but the boy doesn’t acknowledge him. 

“Pete. Will you please talk to me?” Tony says.

Peter doesn’t answer.

“Please, bug, I gotta fix this before I leave.”

Finally, Peter answers; “Then I’ll never speak to you again so you have to stay.”

It breaks Tony’s heart that Peter thinks he can make that work. He gently sits on the bed next to the boy, careful not to move him.

“I can’t do anything about this, Pete. The Stones chose me. I tried so hard to give it all up last Christmas, but I can’t just watch the world be destroyed and stand by doing nothing. I think you’ll understand one day.”

Suddenly, Peter sits up and grabs the legal pad from his nightstand. He flips the pages back to find what he’s looking for. When he finds it, he points accusingly to the information on the page. 

“Look.” Peter insists. “The books fell again this morning. It’s morse code, and it’s one word. ‘ _Stay._ ”

Peter looks at his father to see if he understands. Tony knows, but it doesn’t change anything.

“Dad, it says ‘stay’.” he says again.

“Sweetheart...”

“Why don’t you believe me? It says ‘stay’!”

Tony knows he can’t make this better right now, and maybe he won't ever be able to. So he takes Peter in his arms and holds him while the boy starts to cry in big racking sobs, because he can’t do anything else.

“It’ll be okay, baby.” Tony keeps making promises he can’t keep. “You’re alright.”

“I don’t want you to go. Please, I don’t want you to go.”

“I’m coming back.”

“When?”

Tony takes a watch off his wrist and puts it in Peter’s hand. “I’ll have one just like this on my trip. It won’t have the same time as yours when I get back. I will have moved through space time differently than you.”

Peter inspects the watch closely. “It’s too big for me. It won’t fit my wrist.”

“It’ll fit by the time I get back. You’ll be all grown up by then.” Tony realizes too late what he’s said, and Peter takes it in, horrified. 

“You’re not coming back for a long time, are you?” Peter says, tears spilling onto his face.

“Pete-” 

His son throws the watch in his hand at the opposite wall with all his strength, so hard that Tony is surprised it didn’t break. 

“Pete, don’t make me leave like this.” Tony half-begs his son. “Please, bug, I’ve gotta go now.”

Tony tries to run his fingers through his son’s curls- an action that usually soothed the boy- but Peter bats his hand away. 

Tony’s heart is on the verge of shattering completely, so before he makes the bad decision not to leave and damn the world to hell to stay with his child, he walks to the door. He turns once more to look at his son, trying to take in every detail of Peter he possibly can, even here at his most distraught. 

“I love you, Pete. Forever. And I’m coming back.”

Before he can step out, a book from the shelf falls and hits the floor. It breaks his concentration for a second, and draws his attention to his son for a moment longer. He hopes that Peter can forgive him, then walks away with a heavy heart.

* * *

Tony shows up at the Sanctum unsure of what to expect. He’s not exactly aware of what time travel entails, but he wasn’t predicting the lack of apparent preparation from Strange when he arrived. There was no heavy looking machinery that Tony thought would’ve come along with something like this. That being said, time travel wasn’t something he had looked too deeply into yet- he was still coming to terms with the existence of aliens.

Strange greets him in the foyer they had entered through yesterday, and as Tony steps into the marble hall, he feels a pang of guilt. He misses Peter already. The briefcase he has holding the Iron Man suit feels heavier in his hand as he considers the implications of what he’s about to do.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Miles away, Peter finally gets out of bed, sitting up and going to the door. He feels the same ache his father does, and he wants to be with him. He _needs_ him. 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Tony follows Strange deeper into the Sanctum, to a plain bedroom with nothing but two simple cots inside.

“So how does this work?” Tony asks as Strange takes off his red cape, magically melting away the rest of his costume and leaving him in a cardigan and sweatpants.

“We both settle in for the long sleep while the Stone takes us to whenever we are needed.” Strange replies as he adjusts the Eye of Agamotto on his chest. “You did bring a suit, right?”

Tony lifts the briefcase. Strange raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t prod further.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Peter runs down the hallway, suddenly frantic and scared, without any of the anger he felt before. He knows his father is likely already gone, but he needs to see him one last time. Happy sees him sprinting down the hall, and calls for him to stop, but Peter keeps going.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

“Alright,” Strange says when they’re both lying down, “Try not to fidget too much, it could give you an ache in your back.”

Tony tries to relax, but his mind drifts again. He feels a tear slip down his cheek.

Strange notices Tony’s sadness when he looks over to the other man. “Stark.”

Tony wipes his eyes quickly, “Yeah?”

Strange’s face is gentler than it’s ever looked. “You’re saving half the universe. There’s a chance you may even be saving him.”

Tony swallows and takes a deep breath. “I just hate having to be the one who had to leave. I didn’t ask to be the world’s first choice of saviors.”

“No one ever does.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Peter runs and runs and runs through the massive penthouse, nearly making it to the elevator doors before Happy grabs him and keeps him from going any further. Peter’s screaming for his father, crying for him to come back. 

But it’s too late. The Time Stone has activated, and Tony and Strange are on their way to the future.

* * *

2018.

Traveling through spacetime is not as jarring as Tony thought it would be. 

It feels like something is pulling at him, a weight not heavy enough to suffocate him, but enough to make his chest feel empty and full at the same time. It’s strange how his body can feel the passage of time, in the way that usually goes slowly, but now comes all at once. Like the times when he looked at Peter, and would notice he grew another inch- he could feel that sensation but a thousand times harder. 

Behind his closed eyes, he can sense the green glow of the Time Stone pulsing. He unconsciously slows his breathing to keep pace with the stone’s tempo. 

Then it stops. The green glow fades, and the weight is lifted from Tony’s body. He’s afraid to breathe for a moment, afraid his body might be too fragile for the future. 

“Stark?” Tony can hear Strange call for him. “We’re here.”

Tony opens his eyes slowly, and the first thing he notices is that the room looks mostly the same as it had a moment- or five years- ago. He’s not sure why he was expecting it to change. 

Strange also looks the same as he had before the jump, other than the wrinkles in his clothes. He’s closing the Eye of Agamotto and locking the Time Stone back into place. 

Tony stands, carefully at first, to make sure his legs are still working, and then rises fully from the cot. It bothers him how normal this all feels; because he knows what they’ve done is the farthest thing from normal.

In a stroke of boldness, he pushes open the door to the small room to see the rest of the Sanctum. 

“Stark, hold on.” Strange stops him from leaving. “You may need a few minutes to adjust. We’ll have to check in with Wong before we do anything.”

Oh, that’s right. Wong has to update them on the Thanos situation. That’s when Tony realizes Peter is somewhere out there in the world he’s about to step into.

“Strange, I want to get this done with and go home to my son,” he says.

“Then let’s get it done with and find Wong,” Strange replies. 

* * *

They find Wong waiting for them in the library. He’s noticeably older, a few more wrinkles, a few gray hairs that weren’t there before.

“I’m sorry,” he says in surprise, “I thought you would be arriving at noon.”

“Yes. My mistake, I miscalculated the timing slightly.” Strange says. “But we should still be on the right track for our target future. We can start to-” 

Wong motions to Tony. “You should give him some time before that, Stephen. I’ve been receiving video messages from his son. He should go through them.”

“Peter left messages?” Tony feels his spirits lifting in hope that he didn’t make Peter hate him for leaving. 

Wong gestures to the only desktop computer in the entire library. “He left them for a while, even sent a new one last month. Your driver, Happy, has been updating me on him.”

“How is he? Is he okay?” Tony wants so badly to be happy, knowing that Peter is out there, but he feels the guilt so strongly now.

“He’s… fine. Happy told me that you need to watch the messages to understand.” 

Tony nods, and goes to sit at the computer while Wong and Strange discuss logistics for the rest of the plan. Tony’s eager to see his son’s face again, but he’s dreading the sight of Peter growing before his very eyes in a matter of minutes. 

He opens the screen to find that Wong has prepared the videos in a chronological file for him. Tony lets the videos play in sequential order, and prepares himself for the worst.

The first video is dated the week he left. The blackness of the screen blips away, and Peter is there, looking no older than he had when Tony left.

“Hi Dad. Happy told me you would see these messages when you get back, so I’m making this for you.” The boy looks uncomfortable in front of the camera. He usually loves being filmed, and Tony knows this is out of the ordinary.

“I’m really sorry I was mad at you when you left. I promise I didn’t mean to yell at you. I just really wanted you not to leave me. But I know that was probably selfish. I know you would want me to help people. And I guess letting you go is helping.” Peter says.

“Okay, bye Dad, I love you. See you soon.” Then he waves at the camera, and without thinking, Tony waves back, a smile on his lips.

The next videos are from the following months, and they’re mostly the same. Peter talks about his day, and what he’s learning at school, and how bad of a cook Happy is. And he always talks about how much he misses Tony. Every single time. 

Then, there’s a video from 2014. Peter looks a little older, his hair is different, and he’s got clothes on that Tony doesn’t recognize. 

“Hi Dad. It’s been a little while since I made one of these. I started to miss you even worse the more I did this. I don’t really know what to do without you, and I just wanted to tell you that I don’t think it’s good for me to keep making these.”

Tony stares in horror at the screen, hating himself more than he ever has in his life.

“So I thought it was time for me to let go. I love you Dad. See you when you get back.”

“No,” Tony says, like he can hear him, “Pete, no-”

Then the video cuts. The clip is dated January, just a month before. And Tony sees Peter as a young man for the first time.

“Hi Dad.”

Tony feels time stop. He didn’t have to confront Peter’s age until now. It shocks him how much his son looks like himself when he was younger.

“I stopped making these a few years ago cause I couldn’t stand the feeling that you were still out there. But I wanted to push that down long enough to make this. Because before I see you again, I wanted you to see me.”

Tony is crying now, silent and devastated.

“Before you left, you told me that I would be all grown up when you got back. And I tried that old watch on, the one you gave me before you left.” He holds his wrist up to the camera, and the band of the watch is resting perfectly against his arm. “It fits now, Dad.”

Peter wipes tears from his own eyes, and Tony sobs, covering his mouth, unable to process the lost time. 

“Okay, Dad. I love you. Bye.” 

And he’s gone. 

Tony puts his hand up to the screen, like he could touch him through the darkness. 

* * *

While Wong updates them on the Thanos situation, Tony sits with Strange, drinking a cup of tea. 

“We know approximately where he is, but we need assurance that he won’t have the stones yet.” Wong says. “And we need to get him here on home turf.“

“The second part won’t be hard. If we use the Time Stone, we can lure him in with the promise of gaining a stone.” Strange says, fiddling with the edge of his cape. 

“How exactly are we doing that?” Tony asks.

“He knows where the stones are. He’ll come to Earth first in this future, it’s just a matter of making sure he’s right where we need him.” Wong says.

Strange speaks up. “There is one thing we need to do before then- and Tony I’ll need you for this.” 

“What is it?”

“Do you remember how you got here? Your son had a ghost, correct?”

The pang of guilt comes back. “Yes.”

“We need to be the ones who tell him where to go, so he can bring you here. You need to send this information to the young Peter from five years ago. You’ll need to enter a place called the Dark Dimension. It’s a realm where you can see and influence elements of spacetime.”

“What? But I thought you said going back wasn’t possible.”

“You’re not going back. You’re just seeing the past. You are not visible, and you have minimal physical power in the interaction.”

Tony puts his head in his hands, beginning to collapse under the weight of the task he had taken on. He just wanted to go home and be with Peter. “Why can’t you do it, Strange? You’re the expert in this stuff.”

Strange shook his head. “It’s not that simple. This may sound frivolous, but you’re connected to Peter by your love for him. That will tether you to this dimension, and allow you to communicate with him through spacetime.”

Tony exhales. “Let’s just get this over with.”

* * *

Strange only gives Tony a quick briefing on the Dark Dimension and what it does, telling him “People catch on quickly”, like that was supposed to help. All Tony knows is that he has to navigate to the point in time where Peter discovered the address in morse code. 

“You’ll see yourself in a giant box of what looks like cubes. You just shift the dimensions to the one you need, and interact with the environment as appropriate.”

“‘As appropriate’?”

“Look, it’s hard to explain. The Dark Dimension is unlike anything of this realm, it’s hard to put it into words.” Strange says. “Just make sure we have the insurance we need to get the right future. You’re a genius; you’ll figure it out.” There’s an undercurrent of snideness in the last part that Tony doesn’t have the energy to care about. 

Strange opens the Eye of Agamotto, forming his hands into the position he used when opening a portal. He closes his eyes, drawing upon the power of the stone, and something that looks like a black hole appears in front of the two men. 

Tony stares at the opening, into the darkness that looks like it will swallow him up. 

“This is your stop.” Strange motions to the portal. 

“I don’t need the suit?” Tony looks at him in confusion. The lack of caution Strange seems to be displaying is a little concerning to him.

“Stark, I’m not throwing you to your death. Just call out for me to pull you back when you’re done.”

“Done?” Tony asks, still not even sure exactly what he’s supposed to be doing and how he’s supposed to be doing it. “Done wha-”

Strange rolls his eyes, and shoves Tony into the portal without another word.

* * *

Miles away, seventeen-year-old Peter Stark feels a sharp pain in his chest. 

He clutches his shirt, breathing heavy and deep. Knowing this is the day his father is supposed to return, he hopes the pain he felt is only nerves. He uses the breathing exercises Rhodey taught him, and tries to get back to his homework. 

There’s a quick knock on his door. “Come in.” Peter says. 

“Hey, boss,” Happy steps in. “How are you doing?”

“Happy, please, for the millionth time, you don’t have to call me boss.” 

The older man sits on Peter’s bed. “I know you’re a little anxious about seeing your dad-”

“Happy, you know about my ghost.”

“Yeah. Kid, is everything okay? You haven’t talked about your ghost since your dad left.”

“I’ve been thinking about it. I just-,” Peter pauses. “I always felt like it knew me. Like it was… like it was a person.”

* * *

Tony feels his body stop falling as soon as he enters the Dark Dimension. It felt like the time he entered the portal in New York, but there was no sense of depth like there had been in space. This felt flat, without any sense of beginning or end.

He was inside of something akin to a giant cube, with multiple moments of time on each face of the sides. He can see Peter’s first day of middle school, a day in the park, and a junior Decathlon meet. All of them from the same few months of his life, the time just before Tony had left. 

Tony takes them all in, reveling in the moments he was suddenly so far from, even though they felt like they had only happened days ago.

He touches the closest side, a memory of Peter in the lab in the days before he left, and is surprised to find that he can move the area he comes into contact with- the tray with beakers. Peter is sitting on a bench, messing around with some magnets. 

“Pete!” Tony calls out to him. Of course, he doesn’t hear him, just like Strange said. 

Despite this, Tony watches him, desperately wishing he could talk to him. Remembering that night, Tony shoves at the beaker tray as hard as he can, and the entire thing falls to the floor and shatters. 

Peter looks up, curious, and goes to see the area of impact. He’s so close that Tony could almost touch him. But he still can’t make contact. 

Tony takes the “edge” of the memory, and pulls at it. The image folds in on itself, and an earlier memory reveals itself. 

He’s in New York on the day of the attack. Peter is cowering underneath the wreckage of a car with Happy by his side. He had been on a day trip out to the New York Hall of Science, and the car had been stopped on their way over the Queensboro Bridge. Tony remembers this story, when Peter had told him about his ghost, and he immediately knows what to look for.

Sure enough, the Chitauri bomb lands a few yards away from the car. Peter screams, and Happy grabs the boy by the arm. Tony pushes as hard as he can, and the bomb rolls over to a gap in the concrete barrier that had been destroyed, off the edge of the bridge and into the water.

Tony flips the memory again, finding himself at the 2010 Expo. Looking directly in front of him, he finds a young Peter in his child-sized Iron Man mask. God, he was so little back then.

They both hear a noise, and look to their right to find a massive Hammer drone with it’s gun pointed directly at Peter. Tony looks down at Peter, and without a second thought, shoves him as hard as he can into the patch of grass a few feet away, narrowly avoiding the blast radius of the drone.

When he sees Happy running towards the boy to evacuate, he turns to the next memory. 

This one is Peter in his bedroom, asleep on his bed. The clock next to his bed reads five in the morning. Tony thinks for a minute, wondering what he’s doing here, then remembers the original objective- he has to give Peter the address.

He pushes at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, testing the amount of force he needs. Then, he shoves at the first book. 

That’s a dot. 

Then again at the next four books, a giant opening with four spaces- translating to four dashes. 

That’s a “1”.

He keeps going, pushing out two “sevens”, an “a”, and the street name.

Then, he has an idea. He shifts the memory in front of him to the next day. Peter is shut up inside his room, still angry with his father for leaving. Tony pushes at the bookshelf again, starting another message, knowing the memory of himself would see it later. 

[S] [T] [A] [Y]

He stops, admiring his work, then he hears Peter’s voice distantly from the opposite of the cube;

“I don’t want you to go.” 

The memory of the boy speaking to him breaks his concentration. He shifts over to the opposite side, and watches his conversation with Peter from the day he left.

He watches as he gives Peter the watch, and Peter throws it to the side. He watches himself stand, and walk away from his son.

“Don’t go,” Tony says to the memory of himself. “Don’t go, don’t just leave him.”

The Tony from memory touches Peter’s door, and Tony punches the bookshelf as hard as he can, rage and grief combining to form a horrible sadness in his heart. A book falls, and the Tony from memory turns to look at it.

“Don’t leave him!” Tony screams, “Peter, you gotta make me stay! Make me stay, honey, please!”

Peter can’t hear him. He can’t go back. 

Tony hangs his head, resting against the panes of the bookshelf. He feels so powerless to influence the past. It’s been predetermined from the moment Peter told him about his ghost. 

Then he remembers something. Peter has the watch. 

Tony quickly flips through the memories, going forward instead of backwards. He flies by snippets of Peter’s high school years, wishing he could stay to watch him grow up. But he had to find the Peter from today. He can still change his future. 

When he gets to the image of Peter sitting with Happy in his childhood bedroom, he stops. Peter looks so different now. He carries the unavoidable weight of teenage years that he didn’t have when Tony left. And Tony just takes a moment to look at him, loving him more than ever.

He sees the watch on his son’s wrist, right where he needed it. It was one of the souped-up watches he had been tinkering with, and he’d given it a remote command feature for the suits- and this one was programmed to the suit he had been building for Peter. 

He touches his own wrist, with the matching watch he had taken with him. Hoping this would work, because he had no other way of knowing, he taps the pulse meter on the band. Short beats, then long ones, then short ones again.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Peter feels his watch moving against his pulse point, and stops talking to Happy. He holds the band to his wrist closer, to feel the beats better. Then, he starts frantically looking around on his desk for a pen.

“Uh, kid, are you okay?” Happy asks.

“Happy- Happy, I think it’s him.” Peter says.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Tony watches Peter being to receive the message, and waits for him to find a pen to continue. He taps out the rest of the message, slowly so that he’ll pick up on it.

“Come on, Pete. Come on, you got it.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Peter stops writing, and looks at the final message. He instantly knows what it means, and dashes out the door of his room.

“Peter, what are you doing?” Happy calls after him.

“I have to unlock 17A!” Peter shouts back.

He takes the stairs down to the lab, running as fast as he can. If this worked, he knew his dad was still out there. And he needed Peter.

When he gets to the lab, he calls out to the AI. “JARVIS, get me 17A.”

“Affirmative, sir,” the AI responds.

A pod lowers itself from the ceiling, where all of Tony’s prototypes were stored while he was away. Peter types in the code he had been relayed, 2001- his birth year.

The pod opens up, expanding and forming to its full height so Peter sees what it is.

“Oh my god.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Tony grins while he watches his son open the pod. “Yeah, buddy I knew you could do it.”

Then, he feels a sudden tug on his back, like he was tied by a string. 

He’s suddenly yanked backwards, and in an instant, without warning, he’s pulled back through the portal and finds himself back with Strange. 

“Jesus, Strange, what the hell?”

“You took too long,” the sorcerer responds. “He’s here.”

“Who’s here?” 

Strange holds up the suitcase containing the Iron Man suit.

“Thanos.”

* * *

After Tony suits up quicker than he ever has in his life, he and Strange run down to the street, followed closely by Wong.

“Remember, the objective here is to make sure Thanos can’t even get one stone.” Strange says “If he does, this entire future is compromised.” 

“Then you might want to put that Time Stone in your back pocket.” Tony shoots back.

“I might want to use it.”

The group reach the door of the Sanctum, and Tony steps forward, throwing it open.

They’re instantly met with chaos; the entire street filled with people fleeing from something around the corner.

Tony and the sorcerers prepare their respective weapons, Tony charging up his armour, and Wong and Strange powering up their shields.

When they come to the bend in the road, they see a circular ship floating above them, with a beam of light protruding from the bottom, reaching the ground below. 

“He should be alone in this future.” Strange says. “He’s sent the rest of his crew to Scotland and Xandar.”

Tony looks over at him. “Should we be worried about them?”

Strange shakes his head. “Not in this future. If all goes well, Steve Rogers and his team will take out the two in Scotland, and the ones on Xandar won’t get far after we kill Thanos.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Well, get used to it. We’ve got a bigger problem on our hands.”

The group turns the corner, and are faced with an empty street- with Thanos standing directly in the center. 

Tony feels his fear return. Seeing his dreams made manifest in front of him wasn’t a comfort, no matter how much Strange said this was the necessary path to take. “Strange, this had better be the right future.”

Strange doesn’t say anything, but tightens his fists within his magic shields. 

Then, Thanos calls out to them. “Stark.”

Tony stops in his tracks. “You know me?”

“I do,” Thanos grins. “You're not the only one cursed with knowledge.”

“My only curse is you.”

Thanos narrows his eyes. “We’ll see.”

The sorcerers create a shield surrounding the street ends, to ensure no civilians happened to end up in the middle of the conflict. Strange throws a magical lasso towards Thanos, grabbing his arm and keeping his wrist restrained. Wong does the same, and captures the opposite arm.

Thanos takes both ropes and yanks on them, throwing both men to the ground with the force. 

Tony flies at Thanos, kicking him in the chin and knocking him to the ground.

“The suit’s not bad, Stark.” Thanos says, rising to his feet. “But you’ll need more than a tin armour to stop me.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, “That’s why we brought backup.”

Within moments, something appears from high above the surrounding buildings, and jumps down from the rooftops. 

Peter lands, clad in 17A, a few feet from Thanos. 

“How’s that for insurance, Strange?” Tony laughs in elation.

“Hey, Mr. Thanos, I’d appreciate it if you’d hold still while I calibrate the instant kill feature on this thing-” Peter rambles on until Thanos kicks him to the side.

“Insect,” Thanos scoffs.

“Peter!” Tony cries.

The distraction gives Strange enough time to shoot bolts of magic energy through the pavement, tearing up the street and knocking Thanos off his feet. 

From the ground, Thanos reaches over to Tony and grabs him by the throat with his massive hand, and lifts him up to choke him out.

“Stark, I respect your position as a father. You’ve got a survival instinct that extends to your child. I’ve heard it said that at the very moment of death, your mind pushes you a little harder to survive for them.” Thanos says. “Let’s test that, shall we?”

He tightens his hold on Tony’s neck, squeezing until Tony can barely breathe. He’s so intent on killing him that he doesn’t notice Peter, armed with a leg of his suits exoskeleton. 

Peter stabs the Titan through his shoulder blade, making him release Tony. Wong and Strange rush over, lassoing Thanos once more by his neck and uninjured arm. Peter keeps the blade pushed through Thanos’s arm while he yells in pain.

Tony stands, and takes a deep breath, trying to regain his strength. He approaches Thanos, this creature who plagued his dreams for years, and has now stolen so much time from him, years that he can never get back of Peter’s life.

He comes to stand in front of Thanos, and ejects a blade from his armour. With no more decorum, Tony grabs Thanos’s head, and stabs him through the throat. 

Thanos begins to choke on his own deep purple blood, and Tony enjoys the sight. An evil part of him hopes the Titan’s death will be slow.

But Thanos dies within less than a minute, without much struggle. 

It was done.

Strange stands back and observes. “Yeah, he looks dead.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Yes, thank you Strange, we can see that.”

“I’m the only medical professional here, douchebag. I just legally declared him dead.”

Tony hears a laugh, like a little bell. 

_Peter_. 

Tony looks up, and he’s there. He’s fully there, no screen or dimension barrier between them. He’s tangible, if a little bruised. And grown up.

Tony’s armour comes off in an instant, and he reaches for his son. He’s clutching him with a bone-breaking hug, holding him tighter than he ever has. 

The first thing Tony notices is that Peter’s tall enough now that his hair tickles Tony’s nose.

“Oh, bug. I’m so sorry for leaving.” Tony whispers into his son’s hair. “I’m so sorry.”

“Dad, it’s okay.” Peter’s smiling, Tony can feel it against his chest.

“Pete, it was me. I was your ghost.”

Peter laughs. “I know.”

Tony just grins and holds him even tighter.


End file.
